


But I Don't Need No Cure

by grocketinmypocket



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: AU - Peter Becomes A Raccoon, AU - Rocket Becomes Human, Alternate Universe - Species Swap, Anal Sex, Bestiality, First Time, Human Rocket Raccoon, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Raccoon Penis Warning, Raccoon!Peter Quill, Roquill - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 06:40:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2612051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grocketinmypocket/pseuds/grocketinmypocket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don't like this <i>power cosmic</i> shit," Peter said. "It's scary and dangerous and weird. Can I just go back to stealing non-freaky, non-reality-bending stuff again? Being a Guardian sucks ass."</p>
<p>Or: the one where Peter and Rocket swap species, and deal with the fallout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But I Don't Need No Cure

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was commissioned by [Readasaur](http://readasaur.tumblr.com/), so you know who to blame for causing the existence of another raccoon-penis sex scene. It does indeed contain raccoon peen, so, you know, don't read it if it isn't your bag, man. This is a one-shot, and unconnected to any of my other fic. BUT HEY AT LEAST IT'S COMPLETE AMIRITE?

Rocket didn't know where to point his eyes -- looking down at himself was shocking, dizzying, surreal. Looking at Peter was worse. He couldn't stand to even glance in his direction; the doubling, out-of-body sensation of it warred with reflexive disgust and sympathetic horror. Why Peter wasn't hysterical at the idea of what he'd been turned into was beyond Rocket's comprehension.

"I don't like this _power cosmic_ shit," Peter said. "It's scary and dangerous and weird. Can I just go back to stealing non-freaky, non-reality-bending stuff again? Being a Ravager was great. Being a Guardian sucks ass."

At least everybody in the room who was supposed to be alive was still alive, now that the actually-pretty-impressive light show and weird void-howling-with-the-screams-of-the-damned noise had died down. The dead mercs didn't count, obviously. _At least it was only the two of us,_ Rocket thought, trying to find something positive in this shit-heap of a situation. Having this happen to everyone on the crew at once would be nightmarish.

Rocket had sat down on the floor, right where he'd been when the thing activated, and was refusing to get up, citing his two least favorite 'v' words, vertigo and vomit, as the reasons. Standing up on suddenly too-long, lanky, Terran legs had been a terrible idea -- he was too far away from the ground, without Groot's stability under him, just his own uncertain balance and wobbly, unfamiliar muscles.

Sitting on the floor wasn't much better. He'd been unable to figure out what to do with all the length of himself, legs particularly, and leaving them out in front of him just meant he saw them constantly and was constantly startled all over again. His hands -- huge, pale pink, and like big numb sponges -- kept intruding into his vision, too, and he ended up sitting on them to keep from flapping them in his own face and scaring himself. He couldn't even imagine being in this body long enough to stand up and get back to the ship, much less _live_ like this. 

Hysteria was starting to look like a valid option at this point.

Peter wasn't hysterical, though. He was standing there calmly, seeming more interested in looking himself over, rubbing the palms of his new hands together to feel the rough, almost calloused texture that Rocket was all too familiar with. He was a little cranky -- mostly, as he'd complained almost immediately after the thing had activated and he'd seen what had happened to them, because his helmet and jet boots would no longer fit -- but not devastated. Not as if his whole life had been ruined. Not as if he'd been turned into a freakish little monster.

Like Rocket had once been.

He couldn't keep his eyes averted from Peter forever, and definitely not when Peter was walking up on short little legs, right in between Rocket's newly long ones, and standing face-to-face with him, looking him over. He wanted to beg Peter's forgiveness, even though he knew it wasn't really his fault, or anyone's really. If it was anyone's fault, it was Nova Corps -- if they knew the Guardians ran heavy on the collateral damage, why the hell did they keep sending them after fragile, dangerous shit, and then have the nerve to be surprised when destruction and chaos ensued?

It hadn't been his doing, that the thing they'd been sent to retrieve had somehow swapped he and Peter's species, but what it had turned Peter into was entirely his fault. Peter had the same bipedal stance as Rocket had once had, had the same twisted little animal freak body -- his pelt was ginger-blond, and his bandit mask and markings were a deep, velvety red-brown, but he otherwise looked the same as Rocket had, about five minutes ago. 

"Am I as hot as a raccoon as you are as a human? Please say yes, I don't wanna be the ugly kid at the school dance," Peter said. His eyes were a deep brown, like dried blood, and he was staring at Rocket, those bright little eyes moving over his new features, taking them in. "Because you're pretty damn hot as a human, Rocket. Seriously." When Peter's eyes travelled down farther, it filtered all the way into Rocket's awareness that he wasn't just cold because his skin was hairless and unprotected, it was because he was naked, sitting in a drift of metal and fabric and leather scraps. Peter was naked as well, of course, but seemed to give as few fucks about that as a raccoon as he had as a human.

"Gimme your coat," Rocket demanded, and Peter laughed at him and fucking _scampered_ back over to the pile of human-sized clothing he'd left behind. The thought of standing up made Rocket want to hurl, but Peter seemed to be adapting just fine. He dragged the long burgundy leather coat back over to Rocket and dropped it in his lap, just as the door finally gave way to Gamora's insistent attentions with what Rocket guessed was a welding torch, god knows where she'd found it. The door was wrenched open and Gamora, Drax, and Groot all spilled into the room, piling up in a three-deep traffic jam as Gamora stopped dead, staring at Peter and Rocket and the fragile, dangerous, reality-warping artifact they'd been tasked with protecting, smashed to pieces on the floor.

"What did you _do_?" she asked despairingly.

"We got the thing, and then the thing got broken. And it did this. That's all I know, I'm not the right person to ask about freaky cosmic reality-warping thingies, I just steal them," Peter said, swishing his tail in irritation.

"Quill?" Drax said in disbelief.

"Yeah, can't you tell it's me? I mean, my hair -- okay, well, fur -- is the same color, and my voice is the same," Peter said. "What, I don't look like myself? Except for the fur and everything."

"Rocket?" Gamora asked, turning to look at him with blank shock on her face. 

"Yeah, it's me," he muttered unhappily, pulling Peter's coat around his hunched shoulders. 

"We have to report this to Nova. Maybe they can reverse this," Gamora said, moving to gather up the pieces of the artifact and place them in a pouch at her waist. "They will not be pleased."

"Like I am?" Rocket asked sourly, watching Groot and Peter staring at each other, Groot tilting his head in puzzlement.

"I am Groot?" Groot asked, stretching out one vine-twined hand to gently poke at Peter's shoulder. To Rocket's dismay, it sounded like Groot had simply said his own name, nothing more. The nuances of meaning and abstract concepts conveyed by those few words were lost on Rocket now, and it was apparent from the dawning comprehension on Peter's face that he had caught all of it.

"Yeah, buddy, it's Peter. Rocket's over there," he said, pointing, and then climbed up Groot's side, settling himself on Groot's shoulder and holding on with his strong, taloned little feet. He tugged at the side of Groot's head, and Groot obediently turned and came over to squat down by Rocket, looking at him just as quizzically as he'd stared at Peter.

"I am Groot?" he asked again, and Rocket frowned. It still hadn't sounded like anything but those three words.

"I can't understand him anymore," Rocket admitted, and Peter's ears immediately drooped in sadness and sympathy. Seeing the expressions and body language he only knew from the inside was unsettling but fascinating, like a funhouse mirror. 

"Aw, man, that sucks. He asked if you were okay," Peter translated, and climbed down to stand between Rocket's knees again, putting one tiny hand out to touch Rocket's shoulder. "Are you?"

"Let's just get out of here," Rocket said. He was dreading standing up, but revisiting his lunch was better than answering Peter's question. He didn't think he could find any words for the depth of his horror -- not just at the changes to his own body, but to Peter's. At the fate Peter was resigned to, if Nova couldn't find a way to reverse this.

Groot stood up and reached down with both hands to give Rocket a boost to his feet, and ended up carrying him when it became clear that Rocket and his feet were not on speaking terms at the moment. Peter had started out on Groot's shoulder, riding above Rocket as Groot's familiar, stolid stomping carried them back to the ship, but soon leapt down to sit in Rocket's lap, looking down at him so steadily and warmly that Rocket felt his cheeks burn. Without his fur to hide behind when he blushed, he felt naked to the world, even wrapped up in Peter's cast-off coat.

"It'll be okay, Rocket," Peter said. "Even if they can't reverse it, you'll get used to being human. I'll help you, if you'll help me."

"Help you what? Get used to being a little monster like I used to be?"

Peter's ears went back in that sympathetic set again, and he laid his head on Rocket's chest and hugged him with his short arms. "I'm gonna be okay, Rocket. This isn't so bad, so far."

Rocket swallowed hard, knowing that fighting with Peter about it would only make Peter realize even sooner how fucked up his life had become. It was bad, and it was going to be bad; Peter just didn't realize it yet.

=====

Peter seemed to adjust to his new body and lot in life more quickly and completely than Rocket had expected. He'd expected for there to be anger, betrayal, grief -- especially after Nova informed them, essentially, "beats us, you're on your own." Instead, Peter had new clothes tailored to fit him, browbeat Rocket into adding clips for his fluffy ears to the headphone earpieces and modifying his jet boots, had a new helmet made, and went on as if nothing much had changed. The biggest difference, aside from how particular and fussy he was about his tail, was his attitude toward Rocket. He'd stopped flirting with anyone but Rocket, for one thing.

It had started the morning after the switch -- Rocket had woken to Peter knocking insistently on his cabin door, and when he'd gotten up to make the fucker stop pounding, fuck, gimme a minute, Peter had been staring up at him with a shell-shocked look on his face and a towel wrapped around his waist and puddling on the floor.

"There is some bullshit going on that I need for you to explain," Peter said, pushing his way into the room past Rocket. When Rocket turned around after shutting the door, he saw that Peter had dropped the towel and was standing there in nothing but fur, penis erect and out of its sheath.

"What the hell, Quill?!" Rocket exclaimed, averting his gaze. 

"My question exactly! What the hell is happening here? There's a goddamn bone in this thing! A _bone_ , Rocket. _In my dick._ How does this even work?" Rocket dared a glance at Peter again, and he was standing there with his hands on his hips, penis still out, expression of irritated consternation on his furry little face.

"Uh. It just -- it does that, okay? The bone comes out when you, you know, get excited." As if by some kind of sympathetic magic, Rocket could feel something new happening to his own dick, and he was pretty sure that getting his first human erection in front of his recently raccoon-ized, naked-and-also-erect best friend was some kind of pinnacle of awkwardness as-yet unattained by sentient life forms. Peter noticed instantly, of course.

"Looks like you've got a bone, too," Peter said, snickering, and Rocket could tell the little jackass was extremely proud of himself for that one.

"Fuck you," Rocket said, turning his back on Peter.

"Sure, I'm game," Peter said. "I'll show you how yours works if you show me how mine works."

The moment he realized he was actually considering it, Rocket knew it was time for Peter, Peter's new dick, and Peter's ridiculous willingness to screw anything with self-awareness to get the _fuck_ out of his room. Said ridiculous willingness was a bad mix with Rocket's new body, which was suddenly becoming very persuasive about the idea of going along with Peter's offer. If all Terrans had to deal with this stupid amount of synapse-frying lust constantly, no wonder they'd never made it off-planet. Any thought that wasn't about his cock, what he could do with it, and who he wanted to do it with simply bounced off the surface of his brain, no room left in it for anything that wasn't a sudden, overwhelming attraction to the little furry asshole standing behind him with his cock out of his sheath like an invitation.

If Peter kept offering, he would end up actually doing it; no power in the galaxy would be able to convince his dick of what a horrible idea it was, and only weirdness, shame, and guilt would result. Peter didn't know what he was saying, he was probably still in shock, and taking advantage of him right now would be a hideous betrayal on Rocket's part -- not to mention illegal and pretty goddamn fucked up. 

"Yeah, no, we're not doing that," Rocket said. "Just go back to your room and jerk off or something, okay? I can't help you with that."

"I'm serious. You're really, really fucking hot as a human, and we already know our way around each other's equipment. Why not help each other out?" Rocket could hear the towel moving on the floor, as if Peter had kicked it away, and Peter's footsteps coming closer.

"No," Rocket said grimly. "Stop asking. Go back to your room and figure it out on your own, Quill."

Peter stopped moving closer, and when he spoke he sounded hurt under the cheerful, just-sayin-pal tone. "If you change your mind, just let me know."

The towel rustled against the floor again and Peter's footsteps moved away. Rocket didn't move until he heard the airlock close behind Peter's exit, and then sighed, looking down at the bulge of his hard-on.

"You need to shut the fuck up," he muttered, and resentfully yanked his sleep pants down, because apparently there would be no concentrating on anything else today unless he dealt with whatever the hell his dick wanted to talk about with his brain. He was completely unsurprised to find that the subject his dick was so interested in was Peter, because of course it was.

There was no way that he could have gotten out of this without some part of it being fucked up, wrong, and against the law in most of the galaxy, because his life was a pile of crap. He no longer looked like a monster, so that just meant that his already-broken brain would acquire some horrific new cracks in it to compensate. Once a freak, always a freak. This was wrong, and obscene, and par for the goddamn course for the shit-show that was Rocket's life. He was now the kind of pervert that he'd always assumed any humie who would show any interest in him would have to be. 

None of that stopped him from jerking off, that first morning, or all the mornings after that, thinking of Peter and flaying himself with guilt for it afterward. It got easier and easier to look Peter in the eyes, even after all the filthy things he'd thought about him, and that made him just as ashamed of himself as the fantasies. 

Still didn't stop him.

=====

Peter was cute. That was the fucked up thing. Rocket had always thought of his former self as hideous, a mangy little furry freak of science, but Peter was _adorable_. As a human, he'd been hard to read, a con man through and through. As a raccoon, everything about him was magnified -- every emotion was broadcast with a booster signal of cuddly and fluffy and sweet, and you could read every thought as it passed over his face like watching clouds melt into each other. Packing Peter Quill's personality into a three-and-a-half foot tall, unbearably cute little body had only made it louder and brighter and even more magnetic than before. The almost disturbing level of cuteness was in no way a turn-off, however, and for that, Rocket called himself every name imaginable.

As for how he looked himself, Rocket hadn't had enough of an interest in humies to have formed a yardstick to judge human attractiveness with. He'd assumed that Peter was probably attractive, as well as Gamora, based on other's reactions to them, but he hadn't seen it himself. After the change, he'd examined himself in a mirror and seen a male humie he would have passed on the street without looking twice. Blue eyes, almost as pale as Drax's eyes, and brown hair the color his pelt had been. More hair was scattered over his chest, arms, and lower body. His flaccid human cock lay against his thigh, and he'd had to turn away, then, because nothing was still the same and he felt that awful vertigo again. 

With nothing to go on but the way others treated him, Rocket slowly came to realize that his human body was, in truth, extremely attractive. Humies tried to pick him up when he and Peter went out drinking, and Peter usually reacted by climbing up to sit on Rocket's shoulder, a living "hands off" sign glaring hatefully at the offending party. Rocket didn't mind too much; he'd waited to find out what kind of humies he would be attracted to, and was disturbed to discover that the answer was none of the above. Peter dominated his fantasies and his thoughts, and there wasn't room for anybody else. 

Peter was certainly appreciative of Rocket's new form, and told him so as often as he could get away with. He never made another direct proposition, but his attraction to Rocket wasn't at all hidden, either. For the first few weeks after the switch, he would look up and see Peter staring at him, smiling. The only answer Peter would ever give was that he was constantly finding new ways for Rocket to be gorgeous, and Rocket stopped asking after a while. There was a tension between them now -- hopeful and admiring on Peter's part, frustrated and confused on Rocket's -- that never dissipated, just waxed and waned with the ardor of Peter's flirting and with Rocket's disgusted annoyance with all of it.

Peter never flirted with anyone else after that, either, as far as Rocket could tell. He enjoyed the attention his furry, playful, sassy little self earned him from women when they went out bar crawling, but made sure it stayed safely at the level of scritching his ears and petting him like a cute puppy. He never exploited that attention to get laid, and Rocket couldn't figure out why. If Peter wasn't already sitting on Rocket's shoulder, the moment some broad in a bar began to flirt seriously with him, Peter would scamper off to find Rocket, this time using his human perch as a "keep away" sign. Rocket didn't understand what was wrong with him -- he knew for a fact that there were humies who were into what Peter was, and what Rocket had been, and figured Peter would take advantage of it.

He was secretly glad that Peter wasn't. At least he didn't have to watch some other pervert enjoy what he couldn't accept for himself. He could no more stop wanting Peter than he could stop breathing, but he also couldn't bring himself to say yes. He would be the same kind of sick freak he'd always looked down on before, if he let himself. Worse, he'd be the one taking advantage of Peter, preying on him even though it was his own fault that Peter had been so horrifyingly altered. He would be a monster all over again.

Between Peter swaggering around like a burly, muscled little ball of fur, gently flirting and showing interest in Rocket, patiently, like he was tending to the soil in Groot's sun room, and Rocket's own shameful obsession with him, Rocket's life was a complicated stew of guilt, desire, and general what-the-fuck-ness at his own twisted human brain. It wore on his nerves, made him slow and sloppy when Gamora drilled him in hand-to-hand techniques, made him even more short-tempered and vicious than he'd been as an animal. Peter never gave up, never showed the slightest bit of anger or resentment at what had been done to him, just kept on smiling and laughing and dancing and telling Rocket how good he was looking today, I like that shirt, it makes your eyes look really blue -- and Rocket didn't know how to respond except to snarl out a _shut the hell up, Quill_ , and then resentfully jerk off again later.

By the time Rocket's nerves had frayed entirely in two from waiting for Peter to catch on to how bad things were, and from continually forcing himself to ignore Peter's careful, warm interest in him, it was too late to avoid a confrontation, anyway. 

=====

If Rocket had realized that altering the headphones so that Peter could still wear them had meant he would be hearing even more of Peter's stupid music, he would never have done it. The way the ear-clips held them onto his head ended up broadcasting as much of the sound into the room as it did into Peter's ears, so that Rocket was subjected to it -- via either walkman or tape deck -- constantly. Rocket despised hearing the swelling noise of music approaching from the other end of the ship, because it meant Peter would soon appear, bopping to the beat, and Rocket would yet again completely fail to keep his eyes off of him.

Peter danced just as much now as he ever did -- he was still just as likely to enter a room mid-dance-step, having danced the whole way from there to here. He should have been ridiculous, a funny little dancing freak, but he wasn't. Part of it was just how much obvious joy he took in moving to the beat, singing along; another part was how confident and comfortable he was, like the music was home to him and he belonged in it, completely at ease while he gyrated and bounced and swayed. It was infuriatingly _hot_ , is what it was, and Rocket resented every single note, every move, with murderously intense passion.

Now he could hear the tinny, far-away strains of "Hooked On A Feelin'" filtering down from the access shaft to the flight deck, getting louder as Peter descended the stairs and burst into the common area. He flung out his arms dramatically and belted out the chorus, dancing his way past the table where Rocket sat with one of his guns -- the scope kept drifting out of focus and he couldn't figure out why -- and into the galley at the far end of the deck. He clambered unselfconsciously up onto the counter, seeming to completely disregard any shame at needing to, and Rocket inwardly cringed. He'd always hated for people to see him climbing like an animal, but Peter didn't seem to care.

Once he'd found the protein bars he was after, Peter jumped down from the counter, still dancing as he crossed the room back toward Rocket, who hurriedly averted his eyes. Whenever Peter caught him staring, he seemed to take it as permission to flirt. Peter grinned at him, eyes laughing and teeth bright, and very suggestively and deliberately ate the protein bar with obscene enjoyment, humming and moaning over it luxuriously. Rocket wanted to _throttle_ him.

Finishing the last of the bar, Peter balled up the wrapper and tossed it into the recycler and then meandered back to the table just as the song playing over his headphones ended. He pressed the stop button and snagged the headphone clips onto his coat, in deference to Rocket's demand that if Peter was going to hang around him, he had to at least turn the music off. He hoped Peter would get bored and wander away soon, but Peter never seemed lose interest in sitting near him and watching him tinker around with something. Now he watched silently for a while as Rocket removed the casing from the scope to reveal the delicate electronics and sensors inside. Seeming to tire of simply watching, finally, he jumped up and tried to cram himself into the chair Rocket was currently occupying.

"Hey, good-lookin', what's cookin'?" Peter asked, bulling his way into the seat alongside Rocket, even though there wasn't enough room, and bumping his hip companionably against Rocket's.

Rocket put the scope he'd been disassembling down onto the table with an irritated thump, and bumped Peter back, more roughly. "I'm busy, Quill. Get off the chair."

Peter latched on to Rocket's shirt and slithered himself into his lap, ducking under the elbow that Rocket shoved at him for good measure when the hip-bump didn't dislodge him from the seat. "I'm bored, man, let's do something." Peter bounced and fidgeted in his lap, a bundle of fur and energy.

Rocket picked him up under the arms, needing to get Peter and his warm, soft wiggling away from his lap -- and his dick. "I already told you, Quill, I'm not interested," he said, dumping Peter on his feet before returning to his work.

"I didn't mean that," Peter said, sounding wounded. "I meant we could watch a movie or something. I know you think I'm a little freak, okay? I know you aren't interested, because you treat me the way you always got so pissed off when people did it to you -- like a stupid little thing. So believe me, I get it," Peter said. "You hated yourself so much when you were like this that now you hate me, too." He turned and started to walk away, and his tail was bristly with tension, swishing stiffly behind him. Rocket knew what that felt like; that was humiliated, hurt feelings and sick anger at even letting yourself feel anything about it at all.

"I don't hate you, goddammit," Rocket said, unable to look at Peter's dejected, slumped shoulders and lowered ears as he slunk out of the room. "You just -- you don't understand."

Peter stopped but didn't turn around. "What don't I understand? That you're disgusted because I'm like you used to be?"

"No, that your whole life is ruined because of me!" Rocket snapped. "I wouldn't wish what I was on anybody, and now -- now it's you, and it's because I was there. You don't understand what you are, you just prance around like it's all fine, like nothing's wrong with you!"

"I don't blame you, if that's what you think," Peter said, turning around now to look at Rocket. "You didn't mean to do this."

"It doesn't matter whether I meant to or not, it's done. Don't you get it? You act like you aren't in pain all the time --"

"What? I'm not," Peter said. "Were you in pain, before? You were, weren't you?" Rocket said nothing, and Peter's little face crumpled. "You never said a fucking word! You never told me anything like that! I would have tried to help you if you'd just told me!" Peter was furious now, shoulders forward, fists clenched, ears skinned flat to his head and teeth bared.

Rocket was furious too, up on his feet and shouting down into Peter's upturned face. "You want me to tell you something? Fine. I _was_ in pain all the time. Pain was how they _made me_ , how they tore me up and made some fucked up thing out of the pieces. I was awake for all of it, every single bit, and they didn't start cutting me up until after I was self-aware. That socket on my back? That was for a shock harness, Quill. They shocked me when I didn't do what they wanted, when I didn't learn to talk fast enough, when I failed a simulation." 

He paced to the other side of the common area, hands in his hair, pulling at it restlessly.

"You don't understand what it was like, you act like it's all easy and fun and you let people pet you like you're some kind of animal -- you act like it doesn't bother you! You didn't suffer for it, didn't get shocked over and over, didn't get tortured to make you walk and talk like a person! This is like a fairy tale or something to you -- it's like you just woke up and you were different. It's nothing to you. Even the way I am now, I'll never get over being made into what I was, Quill. It's always gonna be _right here_ , at the front of my mind, till the day I die, and thanks to you, that's a lot farther away than it used to be. I'm gonna have to live with that shit in my head for a long, long time."

"What do you mean, 'farther away than it used to be'?" Peter said, a new kind of slow-dawning horror stealing up on the grief his face had shown while he'd listened to Rocket.

All of his anger suddenly gone, Rocket couldn't look at Peter when he spoke again. "You've got maybe ten years left, Quill, maybe not even that long. The cybernetics and genetic engineering probably gave me a little more time than I would've had, but whatever they made me out of didn't live much longer than fifteen, twenty years on its own, according to the notes they kept on me."

Peter said nothing, and there was nothing Rocket could say to soften it, make it any less stark and awful. He heard Peter walk away, and coward that he was, Rocket couldn't bring himself to look up until long after Peter was gone.

=====

He kept waiting for Peter to come back, to come and find him, but he didn't. He gave up on waiting, finally, and went looking. He found him in Groot's sun room. The floor was covered with rich loamy dirt and a thick pelt of grass, powerful sunlamps provided by Nova when they rebuilt the _Milano_ offering a way for Groot to still get the light he needed when they were in transit in deep space. The lamps were turned down to dusk now, though, and Groot was nowhere in sight. Peter had probably asked him to make himself scarce. The two of them talked now, much the same way Rocket had held conversations with him before -- half actual understanding and half using Groot as a sounding board and mouthpiece for his own thoughts.

Peter was sitting on a little stump that Groot had found while they'd spent some time on a forested planet for a mission. It had been exactly the right height for Rocket's short legs, and was situated right next to the deepest part of the dirt flooring, where Groot liked to sink roots down into it and soak up the moisture and nutrients, so that Rocket could sit there and keep Groot company. Now Peter was the only one who was the right height for it, and he was alone, staring at nothing, ears down in a posture that Rocket recognized as deep, distracted thought.

Rocket didn't know if it was the noise his feet made on the dirt and grass, or the scent of a human approaching him, but Peter glanced up without surprise. He sat down on the patch of ground next to Peter's seat, side-by-side rather than facing him. 

"I'm sorry I told you that way. I shoulda handled that better."

"Yeah, that would've been nice," Peter said quietly.

"Look, I've been where you are. When I realized I wasn't gonna live very long, it messed me up for a while. The only way I could deal with it was to decide that if it happened, it happened. I mean, I was more likely to get shot tryin' to take down bounties than I was to die of natural causes, anyway. That's what I meant when I agreed to help you stop Ronan. Life I lived wasn't gonna be a long one, no matter what."

He sighed, shifting sideways on the soft grass so that he could see Peter's profile.

"I'm sorry that it's you. I wouldn't have put this on you, for anything. Groot's my friend, but not the kind of friend you turned out to be. I'm sorry I've been an asshole about this, too, and that I haven't helped you more with it. I'm just...I'm sorry." Rocket had never apologized for anything, never spoken at such length about anything like feelings, or friendship, before, and he felt lost and unsure if he'd said the right thing. Or even if he had said the right thing, whether it would help.

"I've had a weird life," Peter said, after a while of quiet between them. "This is actually small potatoes, when you're me. I never realized how bad it really was for you, Rocket. I'm still pissed that you didn't tell somebody you were in constant pain, by the way. But I never really let myself think about what they did to you, because it's awful to think of that shit happening to someone I care about. I couldn't stand to think about it. When this switch happened, I just kinda...went with it. I never stopped to think about how it would seem to you, I guess. The way it happened to me, it really isn't that bad. I can't reach some door controls anymore, and sometimes people dismiss me, but hell, they did that before, and most of the time they weren't wrong to. I know I have it easy, that I'm getting off a lot lighter than you did, and I'm sorry for that."

Peter turned, sliding around on the seat so that he was facing Rocket. "I don't lead the kind of life that ends up being a long one, either. From the time I was ten years old, I grew up thinking I might die, every single day -- either because Yondu might really let the crew eat me, or we might be attacked and boarded, or blown up, or I might get shot when they took me on raids. I got used to the idea of dying young when I was still a kid. I hoped I'd get more time than -- than ten years, but that's more than I ever really thought I'd get, you know? Knowing I might not have very long makes me want to not waste any of it."

Peter squared his shoulders up like he was readying for a fight, and got up. Standing, he was at Rocket's eye level. Rocket could see in his expression that he'd come to some kind of decision, and realized what it was a split-second too late to stop Peter from kissing him. Peter was as strong as Rocket had ever been, overpowered for his small size, really, but he used none of that strength to hold Rocket in place, or stop him from pulling away if he wanted, just rested his small, warm hands on Rocket's upper arms and kissed him.

The shock of being kissed, for the first time -- not only as a human but as anything -- kept him still for longer than he'd meant to be. He'd meant to gently push Peter away, explain why this couldn't happen, but by the time he'd made up his mind to, it was too late. He was already working out how to reciprocate even though the shapes of their mouths didn't match up, and then once he'd started kissing him back he didn't want to stop. Nobody had ever told him it could be like talking without words. Peter was telling him so much right now: how much he'd wanted him, how much he wanted to be with him. It was the same thing Peter had been trying to say for over a month, and Rocket hadn't been allowing himself to listen.

He was listening now, and answering, telling Peter as much as he could with his own kiss, and when Peter realized he was being kissed back rather than just tolerated, he sank his hands into Rocket's hair and pressed his body against Rocket's chest. Rocket's arms went around him, like they belonged there, and when his hand landed on Peter's tail, Rocket began stroking it, firm passes of his hand from base to tip, digging his fingers into the fur. Peter convulsed against him, a spasm of pleasure twisting his spine, making him rock his hips and grind them against his partner.

Peter broke the kiss and dropped his head to Rocket's shoulder. "Okay, I'm legitimately pissed now that I never got to do that to your tail, dammit." He lifted his head to look at Rocket. "You know I'm in love with you, right? I would have been into it before, if you were interested, but since all this -- I can't stop looking at you. I can't stop thinking about you."

"Well, fuck," Rocket said, sighing. "If that's love, then I'm in love with you, because you're all I've thought about for a month. It's been horrible."

Peter laughed and kissed him again, licking with his warm, flexible tongue across Rocket's lips and tempting him into opening up for him. When he did, Peter's tongue caressed his and the sensation was so new and dirty-wonderful that he had to pull away -- it felt _too_ good. Peter moved back, dropping his hands from Rocket's hair.

"Do you not want to, because I'm not human? Look, if you're doing this because you feel sorry for me or something, we don't have to actually do anything --"

"Will you shut up?" Rocket said, pulling Peter back against him. "We just went from not bein' able to stand each other, to whatever it was you just did with your tongue, which I liked, all right, but it was kinda startling," Rocket said. "And I just went from never bein' with anybody to -- to whatever it was you just did with your tongue. Gimme a minute to catch up with you."

"We can go slow --" Peter said, reaching up to put his hand on Rocket's cheek.

"Did I say that? No, I said let me catch up with you." Rocket turned his head to nuzzle against the palm of Peter's hand -- he hesitated for a moment, then licked and kissed the palm, as well, and Peter shuddered. "We need to do this in the shower sometime," Rocket said, grinning at the look on Peter's face. "Your hands get more sensitive when they're wet." He kept alternating kisses and licks over the surface of Peter's palm, and Peter's eyes were practically rolling up into his head.

"If you keep doing that, I'm gonna be done by the time you catch up to me. I had no idea my hands could do that, holy shit," Peter said, grinding his hips against Rocket. "We're definitely gonna do this in the shower next time." Peter pulled free and raked up the front of Rocket's shirt to get both his hands on his bare skin, rubbing his palms over and over in circles as he leaned in to kiss him and do the thing with his tongue again. Peter's fingers skated teasingly across Rocket's nipple and he moaned into Peter's mouth, shuddering as Peter had when he'd kissed his palm.

"What the hell -- is that what those are for?" he said in amazement. It had felt like a direct line of sizzling fire, straight from Peter's fingers on his skin to his cock.

"Oh man, we're gonna get to show each other all the fun stuff," Peter said with glee, yanking at Rocket's shirt again until he got the idea and pulled it off over his head. As soon as his chest was bare, Peter was stripping his own clothes off, and he pressed himself back up against Rocket, rubbing his fur over Rocket's naked skin. "For example, this is what all that hairless skin is good for."

All the sensitivity that Rocket's hands had lost with the change seemed to be spread out over the skin of his body, and the sensation of soft, warm fur, with the chill of the metal struts in Peter's collarbones a counterpoint to all that warm softness, against his skin was deliciously overwhelming. Peter was pushing down on his shoulders, pushing him back to lie on the grass beneath them, cool and bristly against his heated flesh. Peter dragged impatiently at Rocket's pants, wanting them out of the way, and he sat up again enough to pull them down and off. After that Peter was all over him, nothing between them, just skin and fur.

He could feel Peter's cock, pushed up out of its sheath and hard, pressed against his naked belly, and his own cock trapped between Peter's thighs as he ground his much smaller body against Rocket's. Reaching between them, Rocket wrapped his hand around Peter's cock and started to stroke, at the same time reaching for Peter's tail with his other hand, stroking it as well. Peter made a sound that was half moan, half purr, and buried his face against Rocket's throat.

"I thought you'd like that," Rocket said, feeling Peter shivering in his arms. 

"You thought right," Peter said, panting, running his tongue over the pulse in Rocket's throat and biting down gently.

Rocket knew precisely how much pressure it required for teeth like Peter's to break human skin, and knew the control it must be taking to not bite down, hard. It excited him: the thought of being on the receiving end of those sharp, wicked teeth, and the thought of making Peter lose control and bite. He wrapped his hand more securely around Peter's tail and yanked, pulling it up and back as if exposing Peter's ass to be mounted. 

Peter bit down, grinding his cock into Rocket's hand and growling through his locked-down, gritted teeth. It was excruciatingly good -- Rocket's sensitive, aching human skin pierced by Peter's fangs, a cold needling pain washed over by Peter's warm mouth and tongue as he licked the bite clean. "You did that on purpose," Peter accused, not sounding at all unhappy. "You wanted me to bite you."

"I've been thinkin' about what I wanted to do with you for a solid month, Quill. I've got more ideas if you like that one," Rocket said, rolling them over to put Peter on his back underneath him on the soft grass. Starting at Peter's throat, Rocket pressed his cheek against Peter's fur, as if rubbing Peter's scent onto his skin, and Peter arched his back and dug his fingers into the grass, purring loudly.

"I like your ideas. This is a good idea. You always make the best plans," Peter said distractedly, between breathy, growling purrs.

Rocket moved lower, rubbing his face against Peter's chest, kissing the bright metal of the struts on his collarbones as he passed, and lower still, until he was within reach of Peter's cock, lying rigid against his belly. He kissed the head, and Peter hissed in a long breath once, and then again when Rocket slid his mouth down as far as he could on the shaft. Rocket had never had this done to him, in either form he'd taken, but he'd wanted to do this for Peter ever since the first time he'd jerked off thinking about him. He tried to imagine what would have felt good to himself, when he was in a body like this, and judging from the way Peter had stopped purring because he was barely stopping to draw breath between moans, he was getting it right.

Peter was writhing and wriggling underneath him, warm and softly-furred against his skin, gasping out nonsense that included Rocket's name, over and over, and once he heard the word love in there somewhere. His small hands were on Rocket's face, not directing but caressing, and when Peter tried to warn him that he was coming and pull his head up, Rocket pushed his hands down to the grass and held them there while he swallowed. The moment Rocket raised his head, Peter's hands were back, this time threaded into his hair and pulling so that Rocket would come up to face level with him, and Peter kissed him deeply and licked the inside of his mouth, purring into the kiss.

"I hope one of your ideas was you fucking me," Peter said once he had enough breath back. He finally used all the strength Rocket knew he now had to flip them both over again, draping himself against Rocket's side so that he could reach down and stroke his cock. The sensation of his tiny, rough-palmed hand was wonderfully distracting, but Peter's words finally filtered in and Rocket raised his head to peer down at him.

"I don't think that'll work, Quill," he said, shocked. "It'd kill you."

"Nope, I know for a fact that I can take it," Peter said with a grin. "I, uh, I've been using some toys. And I know I can take a toy about the same size as you," he said. 

"Were you doing that in case I said yes?" Rocket asked, suddenly struck with the image of Peter, alone in his quarters, fucking himself with a toy while thinking of Rocket.

"Yeah," Peter said, sliding down to kneel between Rocket's thighs, taking hold of his cock and licking it with his clever little tongue. "Even after I stopped hoping you'd ever want me, I still did it. I wanted you so much that I couldn't stop thinking about it." Peter tilted his head and stared down at Rocket's cock for a moment, as if trying to judge angles and approach, and then took as much of the length as he could in his mouth, humming happily when his muzzle allowed him to swallow it down to the root.

Rocket propped himself up on his elbows so that he could look down at Peter. He was adorable, tiny and fluffy and cute, but when he looked up at Rocket over a mouthful of cock, all he could see was _Peter_ and how gorgeous he was at that moment, all that outsized personality and fire shining in his eyes as he stared up at his lover. When he lifted his head, letting Rocket's cock slip out of his mouth, he climbed up to straddle Rocket's hips, grinding his body against his cock in teasing circles.

"Gimme my coat," he said, and Rocket groped out blindly for the pile of clothes they'd discarded until his fingers identified the leather of Peter's specially-tailored Ravager coat and dragged it over into Peter's reach. Peter rummaged around in one of the pockets and pulled out a little bottle, grabbing one of Rocket's hands and dripping some of the contents onto his fingers.

"You carry lube around in your coat?" Rocket asked, watching as Peter turned around on Rocket's chest and presented his ass, his tail sticking up stiffly off to the side.

"Yeah, always have. When I was human, I was kind of a slut. Then I kept on carrying it in case you changed your mind," Peter replied, wiggling his ass to get Rocket's attention. "Loosen me up a little," he said.

"Are you sure about this?" Rocket asked. He had thought about this, yes, and Peter's ass bouncing in front of him in invitation was incredibly tempting, but he wasn't entirely certain Peter could actually take him, given the difference in their sizes.

"You aren't the only one who's been thinking about this for a month. Use your fingers, that's what I put lube on them for."

Pressing his fingers gently to Peter's opening, then sliding one finger inside, Rocket listened closely to Peter's breathing, the sounds he was making -- he definitely sounded as if he was still enjoying himself. He pumped his finger in and out, then added another when Peter demanded it in a breathy, hurry-up-and-fuck-me tone. Remembering how Peter had reacted when he pulled his tail before, he did it again, dragging it up and and back towards Peter's body, exposing his hole completely.

"Okay, you need to fuck me right now," Peter forced out between gritted teeth, grinding down onto Rocket's fingers, hard, before pulling himself away and getting off of him entirely to kneel in the grass with his ass up and presented for mating. 

Rocket wanted to ask if he was sure, one more time, but the way Peter was wriggling impatiently and looking back over his shoulder at him told him the only answer he'd get was to hurry up. He knelt behind him and lined himself up, feeling massive in comparison to his tiny partner, huge and clumsy and awkward. "You know I've never done this before, from either end, right?"

"I trust you," Peter said. "It'll be fine, just use some more lube."

Peter's tail was twitching and swishing in anticipation, and Rocket grabbed it and twisted it away from his body, not intending to turn Peter on with it this time but simply needing to see what he was doing as he added more lube to both of them as Peter had asked. Peter let out a frustrated, snarling groan and pushed himself back against Rocket, the head of his cock slipping inside him, and the hot, slick, tight sensation was so overwhelming that he pushed deeper on instinct, seeking more of that feeling. 

Peter moaned loudly, arching his back almost to the snapping point and digging his claws into the grass. Rocket stilled himself immediately, almost pulled out and away, and Peter snarled out, "Don't you dare stop, just keep pulling my tail." When Rocket still hesitated, convinced he was hurting him, Peter shoved his ass back again impatiently and said, "You're not hurting me, I swear. I 'm gonna be pissed off in a minute, though."

The conflict between wanting to be as careful as he could, and wanting to bury himself inside Peter, was settled by the genuinely irritated tone of Peter's voice, and although he was still gentle when he thrust in deep, he allowed himself to feel everything without holding back. He still had hold of Peter's tail, and pulled it hard enough to make Peter whine with each thrust, going slow at first, speeding up when Peter begged him to. The bulkhead walls of the room echoed with their voices, Peter moaning out answers to Rocket's questions of _do you like that?_ and _deeper?_ and _gonna come for me again, aren't you?_ If any of the crew had come to see what was going on, neither of them would have known, as completely absorbed in each other as they were.

Rocket wrapped his arms around Peter's chest and pulled him up against him, kneeling back on his heels and holding him in his lap, letting Peter be the one to set the pace. He was afraid that if he gave in to his instincts as he got closer and closer to orgasm, he would hurt him. Peter seemed to understand, and rode him hard, grinding himself up and down on Rocket, pulling one of Rocket's hands around and guiding it to his cock. The sensation of Peter spilling hot wetness over his hand as he cried out Rocket's name made him lose the last bit of control he had left and he came hard, knowing that he was saying something but unable to care what it was -- the onslaught of sensation overwhelmed everything.

Feeling weak and completely sated, Rocket settled them on their sides in the grass, letting go of Peter so that he could clean up -- with Rocket's shirt, and he almost wanted to fight over it because who does that? but he was too lazy-happy to make the effort. Peter rolled back over to him, tossing him the now-soiled shirt to use as well, and then curled up in Rocket's arms with his head tucked underneath Rocket's chin, purring softly. 

"You called me Peter," he said after a while, and Rocket's hand stilled where it had been stroking his tail, then continued. 

"Yeah. That's how I think of you. Like, just for me, in my head," Rocket replied. 

"Keep calling me Quill in front of everybody else," Peter said. "When you call me Peter, it'll just be for us."

The thought that his life was going to include Peter with him this way, loving him, being intimate with him, was nagged immediately by the thought that he wouldn't have him for long enough. That his life would be a long one, most of it without this intimacy and love once again, as all of it before Peter had been. His eyes prickled with tears, throat feeling hot and closed up -- he knew Peter could smell the salt of human tears, and sure enough he craned his head back to see Rocket's face, frowning when he saw his expression.

"Is it gonna be too hard for you?" he asked quietly, unhappily. "About me, I mean."

"Yeah, it's gonna be hard. Doesn't mean I don't want to. I'm not gonna waste any more time, like you said. We can do a lot of livin' in ten years," Rocket said, leaning down to kiss him. "And a lot of this. I'll need a lot of stuff to remember."

Peter laid his head on Rocket's shoulder, kissing the bite mark gently. "I love you," he said.

There was no reason Rocket could think of not to say it back -- it was true, after all, and if he kept being such an idiot about everything they'd never have time to do any of the things he wanted to be able to look back and remember when he was alone again.

"Love you, too, Peter," he said quietly, and the happy thrash of Peter's tail thumping against his hip made it worth it.

If ten years would be all they would have, he would make sure it was filled with moments just like this one, and he ran his hand down Peter's tail again, intent on making another memory.


End file.
